What's the weather outlook for the Sierra? Depending on your point of view, things are looking up, or maybe starting to look really down.

First of all, the good news: we've had a ton of rain this fall already (1/3 of our normal rainfall before the end of November!) and that bodes well for the rest of this winter. Here's a story, in the LA Times, that spells it out:

But if you take a longer view, the picture isn't so pretty. We may be seeing the beginning of a prolonged and deep drought for the next eighty years. Here's THAT story, from a climate researcher at UCLA:

let's face it weather prediction is flaky at best. Not knocking the weather people but Mother Nature can change at any time. This year seems to be more unpredictable than others but then every year is unique. Personally, I don't put much stock in long term predictions. Let's see how this winter fairs

balzaccom wrote:The good news is that we are supposed to get more rain before the end of the year. That's good!

Yes very good.... haven't had a chance to renew my bookmarks(Had to rebuild my main system from scratch, and for some odd reason lost my Firefox bookmarks, while everything came back perfectly) for the snow pillows, so I wonder how the Sierra backcountry is doing snow wise?